It is written in the third person and mixes vernacular language and regionalisms with literary narrative, making the main conflict more obvious and at the same time more tangible.

[4] Gallegos then took his wife to Bologna, Italy, for an operation, and returned to the manuscript, making substantial revisions and coming up with a better title: Doña Bárbara.

His rule saw wealth from oil discovered in the early twentieth century, and he used it to develop modern infrastructure and end the era of caudillismo, fully and completely uniting the country for the first time.

Santos Luzardo, a graduate lawyer of the Central University of Venezuela, returns to his father's land in the plains of Apure to sell the land but desists when he discovers that it is controlled by a despotic woman, Doña Bárbara, also known as the men's devourer; it is said that she uses seduction and pacts with demonic spirits to satisfy her whims and achieve power.

Santos Luzardo meets his cousin Lorenzo Barquero and discovers that he was a victim of the femme fatale, who left him bankrupt and a daughter, Marisela, whom she abandoned and who became quickly a vagrant.